Testimonials

Hear from our Patients

The University of Maryland Cancer Network treats thousands of patients each year throughout central Maryland and beyond. Our patients become part of our family and we are excited to share their stories.

Eloise “Candy” Draksler is a self-described ball of energy and uses much of that energy to make children happy. After teaching music for 20 years, Draksler now works full time as a children’s entertainer – a job that requires her to be in good shape. “I’m a healthy person, so it was odd when I was suddenly hit with nausea and dizziness,” she recalls. “I couldn’t sit upright without being sick.” After her symptoms worsened, Draksler was taken by ambulance to UM Upper Chesapeake Medical Center, where a CT scan revealed a mass...

Learning she had cancer through a routine colonoscopy was a shock to Julie Secoura, because she'd never had any symptoms. Julie chose to receive her cancer care at the Tate Cancer Center at UM Baltimore Washington Medical Center, and benefited from its advanced surgical expertise and the multidisciplinary approach the team takes to treatment.

Just two months after getting married, Lindsay Weinert, 28, heard some of the most difficult news of her life: “You have breast cancer.” However, her family’s battle with cancer was just beginning. Genetic testing revealed that both she and her father, Howard, had the BRCA gene mutation that puts them at higher risk for cancer. Soon after, Lindsay found out about her father’s diagnosis, and she was crushed. “It was harder to find out my dad had prostate cancer,” says Lindsay, who considers herself “a daddy’s girl.”...

Ringing a bell to commemorate the end of active cancer treatment and the beginning of a life free of the disease is an experience that a cancer survivor never forgets. In Renè Lambert's case, the moment was even more significant because he was the very first person to do so in the Patricia D. and M. Scot Kaufman Cancer Center in Bel Air, just a short distance from his home in Havre de Grace...